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Heartland

a Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth
Mar 31, 2020JCLChrisK rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Incisive and wise. Smarsh uses stories of generations of her family to process and attempt to understand her own experience, which in turn articulates the experience of so many others. The result is both a deeply intimate memoir and insightful social and political analysis. In the course of telling her stories she exposes the greater context within which they existed. It feels misleading to say this book makes me feel seen. I did not grow up in the same economic circumstances as Smarsh with the same hard-living history in my family. We were Mennonite not Catholic. We didn't farm and I've never felt truly country. Yet so much of it rings true. I grew up in the same part of the country as she did, just 30 miles the other way from Wichita. I'm a few years older, but similar enough in age to recognize her references and influences. Most of all, her environment was mine. I know the landscape she is describing. I wasn't in her shoes, but I saw those who were all around me. And I've lived with many of the same questions and feelings she uses her anecdotes to embody. All of which is to say I don't necessarily represent a typical reader and don't review this from a neutral perspective. That disclaimer in place, I think the book is brilliant. Smarsh weaves family history, poetic descriptions, sociology, and personal reflection beautifully. It is not a linear telling, instead circling back through the same timelines repeatedly, each time adding layers of perspective and understanding. And, just as it makes me feel seen even as someone on the mere periphery of her experiences, it makes visible a whole world of people so often overlooked by everyone not them. This is what storytelling should be.